


dreams are not enough to win a war

by IsleofSolitude



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Cussing, Gen, Grieving, Post Season 4, Suicide mention, mentions of gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 06:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18632974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsleofSolitude/pseuds/IsleofSolitude
Summary: Post 4x13. Eliot has a lot to process.Apparently, this theatre geek's process relies on show tunes.





	dreams are not enough to win a war

Eliot had always been a theatre kid. Even before he knew that was an option in life, he treated his front porch as a stage, the sickly dogs as his captive audience, the chickens as the hecklers. Standing on the stage in high school, curtain due to open in t-minus thirty seconds, he knew that he had found something that strummed through his blood, soul, something that would change his very perception of how life should be lead.

Still, he never expected it to be there as he grieved.

* * *

 

_Opening chorus_

_He served a dark and a vengeful god_

_What happened then, well, that's the play_

_And he wouldn't want us to give it away_

 

He had tried to lose consciousness when the axe had slipped back out of his guts, but when Margo screamed in that tone, only a complete buffoon would disobey.

And while he was many things--idiot, fool, self destructive--Eliot was no buffoon. So instead of darkness, he let his eyes open to see green leaves and blue sky and Margo’s terrified eye and oh so much pain. There was chanting in the background and part of him knew those voices but he couldn’t place it, and then Margo was grabbing his hands and a hand was grabbing his shoulder and--

\--They were at someplace with white walls and large windows and Margo screaming for help, and people jostling him onto a bed.

There was another woman and Margo’s hand and they were arguing--his name thrown around and more jostling as they moved--

\--And as much as he wanted to pass out, he couldn’t, so he heard them prepping needles and bandages and thread and then he was adding to the voices yelling, and then there was another pinch and finally the lights went out.

* * *

 

_Song before the storm_

_Going through the motions_

_Walking through the part_

_These endless days are finally ending in a blaze_

 

Waking was a slow process, and one that left him feeling woozy and heavy in his head. There was a numbness in his stomach, but he could feel his toes so vividly. He breathed deeply, trying to list off his limbs.

Everything hurt, and he groaned.

“Eliot!” There was his bambi, somewhere to his left, and he twitched his fingers in a weak request. Her strong hands curled around his, and then she was shifting, scooting onto the bed and drawing his hand into her lap. “Eliot..”

“Bambi…” He wanted to open his eyes but everything was so heavy. “Where…?”

“Brakebills. Lipson had to stitch you close like a fucking quilt. Sorry. You know me, go big or go bigger.”

“I’m sure that’ll make sense later.” He took a deep breath and forced his eyes open. It took a minute but Margo’s beautiful face came into focus and he caught his breath. “Oh, my queen..”

She was crying, and lifted his hand to her face. “Eliot, oh fucking hell. I missed you.”

“The feeling is fucking vice versa.” He blinked a few times and looked around. “Is it over? Did we win?”

Margo started crying harder. “We did. Monsters are gone.” She reached out and cradled his face. “But, El, baby. something happened.”

* * *

 

_The music meister_

_Day-o, day-o_

_Daylight come and me wan' go home_

 

Time had no meaning, anymore. Eliot had wasted so much of it, what did he give a shit if hours or days or weeks passed in the hospital bed?

So as he and Margo made their way through the old familiar paths of their college, he didn’t know how long it had been since he had been gutted in all ways possible. All he knew was that everything was fucked up, because the one person who actually believed in things like magic and quests and happy endings was the one person who was gone.

The spell settled on his skin and he shivered as he felt it seep in, and as the fire got closer and he made out the shape of his friends, he let his voice join them. Quentin had always liked it when he sang, and while a part of him knew that he would be mad at Kady later for not letting them speak--he was also relieved because he wouldn’t have spoken. You can’t speak about pain when your voice chokes up and your heart breaks over and over and over again when you even remember that he’s gone, and it’s your fault.

Alice offers her hand, and he takes it. Margo squeezes his shoulder and shifts away. They sing, and Eliot wishes their voices brought any sort of comfort. He watches them sacrifice pieces of their lives with Quentin--and oh _god_ even thinking his name makes his heart beat, keeps him alive even while every part of him screams in pain--

He pulls out the peach, inhales it’s scent, wants to kiss it but knows that if he holds onto it he’ll break down and never ever recover (oh but he knows he won’t) and then he throws it away, just like he did to the the life they could have had together.

The fire hurts his eyes but he stares, watches it shrivel, knows how it feels.

* * *

 

_The 11 o’clock number_

_And when you're dying in America_

_At the end of the millenium_

_You're not alone_

  


Brakebills wasn’t safe, apparently they still had fucking enemies despite doing nothing but being heroes, but apparently Kady had a two story apartment and some bitching wards, so as soon as they could get the major trauma healed, Penny had traveled them to their new base of operations.

Julia, Quentin, Kady, and Penny had their own rooms, with Margo and Josh sharing the master whenever they were here. Julia moved into the room Quentin had--no one disagreed--and Eliot got Julia’s.

While Margo was asleep, exhausted from all the shopping necessary to get him much needed life items, Julia slipped into his room.

He hadn’t seen much of her since everything had happened, but when she hesitated in the doorway, he waved her over to the bed and shifted so she could sit comfortably. She was Q’s Margo, and she was someone Eliot could respect and like, and she had for a brief few days been his sister in a weird way. Those kinds of details created a strong bond that made sense, in their fucked up world.

The dark haired girl played with her sleeves, a habit that was so distinctly Q that Eliot’s breath hitched.

“Did Alice...Did you hear how it happened?” Julia’s voice was quiet, pained in a way that made Eliot understand why she had waited til this time of night to come to him.

He shook his head. “Not much...they were in the mirror world, Everett appeared, broke shit, and Q…” He swallowed. “Q cast a spell to fix it and wasn’t able to make it out.”

“I made Alice tell me everything. And then I talked to Penny.” Julia was quiet, and Eliot reached out and let his hand rest on her knee. She took a deep breath. “He was...spiraling.”

And Eliot--Eliot figured it out, held his breath hoping to be wrong.

“The Monster...it was fond of him--I guess from the prison, he showed it a card trick. And then it just kept...wanting to be around him. Making him kill gods and witness fucked up things.” She swallowed hard. “The Monster almost killed you, awhile back. Just after you broke through and we found out you were alive. Began drinking and passed out wherever---roads, snow, stuff like that. And started taking pills.

“Quentin...he challenged it then. Stood up to it and threatened to leave it, threatened to kill it.”

Eliot felt his eyes burning, and when he looked at Julia he saw his tears in her eyes.

“It fucking started to choke him...And Quentin...he didn’t care. He dared it to. It stopped, obviously, and it stopped the drugs and shit, but fuck...He was scaring me.”

“How bad did he shut down?” And Eliot could see it, had seen it--The righteous fury that was a small spark in his apathy, a spark that sputtered out and left him number than before, manic behavior followed by retreat and dismissal, avoidance--a spiral that led Quentin nowhere good and one that took time and patience to pull him out of.

“The last time it got this bad he got checked into a hospital.”

And there it was. Julia rested her head against his shoulder and he wrapped an arm around her waist.

“Do you think…?” He left the question open--she had been the one to talk to the people who had seen him in his last moments. She had seen his attempts before.

She didn’t answer. And oh, wasn’t that everything.

* * *

 

_Dark reprise_

_It’s a sad tale, it’s a tragedy_

_It’s a sad song_

_But we sing it anyway_

 

See, the thing was, grieving wasn’t anything new to Eliot. Grieving for a dead brother, a lover, a friend, an ex, a partner, a stranger---all of that was old news even before he graduated from college.

But grieving for Quentin, who was all of those things but so, so much more? That was something new. Because he had made damn sure he would never had to, hadn’t he? He had fucking done all he could to make sure that fucking nerd was safe.

In the life that never happened, Quentin had told him once, that his mother and father never let him forget that things broke around him. And Eliot--Eliot had done his best to make him realize the opposite. But then they had remembered, and Eliot had broke his heart--made him cry. Made believing in love and truth and magic and happiness just a little bit harder, even for someone as good and true as Q.

In the dark Fillorian night, with Margo curled up on the other side of the fire, with a wife 300 years in the past, with a magical hole in his stomach and his heart crying out the name of someone he will never see again but remember every iota of their soul, Eliot has time to think. He thinks about his friends and his family, about magic and life and how you can do everything right and fail, and how you can do everything wrong and fail even worse. But mostly he thinks about Quentin.

He told Quentin once, magic came from pain.

And Eliot? He’s leveled up.

**Author's Note:**

> Tropes and Songs:  
> Title: Sunset Boulevard (Reprise) from Sunset Boulevard  
> Opening Chorus--Stage Version of The Ballad of Sweeney Todd  
> Song Before the Storm--Walk Through the Fire from the Musical episode of Buffy  
> The Music Meister-- Day-O from BeetleJuice  
> The 11 O’clock number-- What you own from Rent  
> Dark Reprise-- Road to hell II from Hadestown
> 
> Originally I was just writing the scene between Julia and Eliot, but Eliot had a lot to process so it worked out a little more. I kept thinking that Eliot, like most theatre kids I know, would fall back on something so integral to himself while dealing with all the aftermath. I was also slightly inspired by this tumblr graphic: https://emberfaye.tumblr.com/post/183472392571/the-original-vs-the-reprise#notes


End file.
